In October, we reported that Destiny would be ditching the DLC plan for year two, replacing big downloadable content packs with cosmetic microtransactions and free missions. Two months later, Bungie’s finally confirmed it.

Speaking with Eurogamer at the PlayStation Experience last weekend, Bungie designer Derek Carroll said that free events like the Sparrow Racing League (which will be released today) will replace DLC packs for year two of Destiny, which started in September with the launch of The Taken King. Bungie’s plan is to surprise people with these events rather than map them all out as they did with The Dark Below and House of Wolves last year.

Derek Carroll: “With Taken King we are moving to a more event-based model - things like Festival of the Lost and Sparrow racing, which is our winter event, and then smaller events such as Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris every weekend.

Rather than doing these giant, monolithic DLC packs, this way everybody who’s an owner of Taken King can enjoy these things.”

Carroll also hinted that, as we reported in October, this content will be free, supplemented by cosmetic microtransactions:

[Eurogamer:] Will there be anything you need to buy to access?

Derek Carroll: “We’ve had Festival of the Lost and now Sparrow racing. [Both events are open to all players, with only cosmetic items purchasable via real-world money.] If you wanted to extrapolate from there, you could.”

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Although Carroll wouldn’t go into details on why Bungie made this switch, you can find the answer in our report on the story behind Destiny’s development. In short, thanks to technology deficiencies among other issues, it’d be near-impossible for Bungie’s developers to create enough new content both for DLC packs and the next expansion to Destiny, which is code-named “Destiny 2” and will be out next fall.

News that there might not be significant new zones or new raids until fall of 2016 might come as a bummer to some, but sources close to the game’s development have told me that last year’s DLC schedule was unsustainable. In the long run, this could make for a better game.